Electronic devices, such as smartphones, are increasingly supporting use cases, where for certain functionality, it is desirable for the device to be able to support a larger display size. For example, larger display sizes can be desirable for viewing visual content as part of a media player or a browser, as well as for supporting the visual presentation of information as part of an application or program that is being executed by the device. However, such a trend needs to be balanced with a general desire for the overall size of the device to stay the same and even decrease in one or both of dimension and weight.
In an attempt to support larger display sizes without increasing the overall size of the device, device manufacturers have increasingly dedicated a larger percentage of the exterior surface to a display, where the display in many instances has grown in one or more dimensions to a size that dominates a particular surface, such as the front surface of the device. In at least some of these instances, the display has been allowed to extend into areas that had previously been used to support user inputs, such as areas of the surface that have previously supported a keypad, such as a numeric keypad.
Larger displays often mean larger openings in the housing, which can reduce the amount of material that is available to support the structural integrity of the housing, and correspondingly the device. As such, manufacturers are increasingly relying upon materials in the formation of the device housings, such as metals, that have historically better maintained structural integrity with less overall material. This is true for devices having a full metal rear housing, as well as devices that incorporate perimeter metal housings. However, housings made from conductive materials, such as metal, can interfere with the transmission and reception of wireless signals into and out of the device. In some cases the radiating elements associated with the transmission and reception of wireless signals can be integrated into the conductive structure, such as a housing incorporating increasing use of metals and/or alloys. Openings and/or cuts can be made in the housing to form conductive portions of the housing which can serve as the radiating portion of an antenna system. It then can become a challenge to be able to incorporate all of the conductive portions into the housing relative to the available surface space for use in supporting all of the desired types of transmission and/or receipt of wireless propagation of electromagnetic energy, and still meet overall size goals for the device.
The present innovators have recognized that by controlling the geometry of the antenna elements formed in a housing, as well as the manner in which the circuitry interacts with radiating and/or receiving elements of the antenna systems, it may be possible for some of the antenna elements to be used in support of the transmission and/or receipt of multiple types of electromagnetic energy. To the extent that components can be shared in support of multiple types of communication, the need for separate dedicated space to support separate elements can be avoided.